As the day started at a Toronto hospital Tuesday, Tony Lightfoot’s “essential tremors” movement disorder was as debilitating as ever: his arms jolted violently up and down when he held them outstretched, his finger waved about wildly as he tried touching his nose, and the only signature he could manage was a random scratch.

A doctor suggested the retired Calgary engineer take a drink of water. “Have you got a rain coat?” the patient asked.

Over the next four hours at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, however, Mr. Lightfoot underwent a new “scalpel-free” brain treatment that involved firing bursts of ultrasound waves at the misbehaving neurons causing his condition. The results were remarkable. The 68-year-old could hold his hand out steadily, touch his nose with ease and — for the first time in a decade — both sign his name and down a glass of water.

He is one of only a few dozen patients worldwide to undergo the experimental procedure, part of a potential watershed in neurological treatment that is using sound waves, magnetic pulses and radiation beams to bloodlessly heal diseased brains instead of physically cutting into skull and white matter.

Sunnybrook doctors hope the MRI-guided ultrasound technique could eventually be applied to a host of other problems, from brain tumours to Parkinson’s, avoiding the risk of infection and other complications of traditional surgery. The technology might even help diseases like Alzheimer’s better respond to medication by opening up the blood-brain barrier that prevents most drugs from being absorbed into the organ, they say.

“This will revolutionize how the brain will be treated in future,” predicted Dr. Kullervo Hynynen, the Finnish-born inventor of the ultrasound device, now at Sunnybrook Research Institute.

Darren Calabrese/National Post

The hospital already has approval for a trial of the machine to treat cancerous brain tumours.

The researchers still must prove the device manufactured by Israel’s InSightec Ltd. — which costs more than $2-million — is safer and more effective than the existing operations before it is used widely, said Dr. Michael Schwartz, head of neurosurgery at Sunnybrook.

It follows a trend, however, toward more non-invasive treatment of both neurological and psychiatric diseases. At Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, for instance, scientists are trying something called magnetic seizure therapy — which shoots magnetic pulses at targeted areas of the brain — to treat patients with severe depression.

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Gamma-knife surgery, an older technology that shoots focused beams of radiation, is being employed increasingly in Canada to treat brain tumours.

It was long believed that the brain could not be treated with ultrasound, because the skull absorbed too much of the energy, said Dr. Hynynen. His innovation, though, overcame that problem, allowing the waves to be targeted at tiny areas of the brain.

Brain cells in patients with essential tremors — the most common form of movement disorder — fire incorrectly, sending distorted messages to the muscles. For those patients who do not respond well to drugs, surgeons can drill through the skull and physically destroy the offending neurons. More recently, doctors have used deep-brain stimulation (DBS) — probes implanted in the brain that deliver tiny electrical impulses. Both have good results, but carry with them the potential complications of any invasive-brain surgery, while DBS involves using an external pacemaker-type device.

Darren Calabrese/National Post

The Toronto team, headed by Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Andres Lozano from Toronto Western Hospital, both neurosurgeons, had treated four patients with focused ultrasound before Mr. Lightfoot, all of them seeing 80-90% improvement. Some have broken into tears as they discovered their new-found ability, the doctors say.

“This is just fantastic,” Frank Winnacott, a former salesman from Bradford, Ont., said on Tuesday about the results of his own treatment, which has allowed the 78-year-old to once again indulge in woodworking.

Mr. Lightfoot has had essential tremors for about 15 years, and for 10 years it has been disabling, bringing an early end to his engineering career, he said before heading into the treatment room. His head fitted with a helmet-like device through which the ultrasound is fired, technicians slid him into an MRI machine.

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Using the real-time MRI images to guide them from outside the room, the surgeons — dressed in street clothes rather than scrubs — fired 18 blasts at the malfunctioning cells, heating them up until they were neutralized. After each treatment, they asked Mr. Lightfoot to lift his arm and try touching his nose, and each time his movements became noticeably steadier.

“When I lost the ability to write, it was a huge blow,” he said later. “It knocks your self esteem down. To get my self esteem back would be a great thing.”

While someone might eat a Beyond Meat burger for ethical reasons, it does little for that person's health. In fact, it might be more harmful than good

This Week's Flyers

Comments

Postmedia is pleased to bring you a new commenting experience. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. Visit our community guidelines for more information.